From the back cover: "And darling, we're going to change it so enormously. Pull the whole place up by the roots--cut its hair, paint its face, give it some royal parties. Oh, we'll lay the ghosts"

In 190 Lady Charlotte French-McGrath continues to rule her family and household with a rod of iron. She is mistress of Garonlea--a huge gothic house in Ireland--, wife to Ambrose French-McGrath and mother of Muriel, Enid, Violet, Diana and Desmond. Their life flows on until two events, years apart, which irrevocably break Lady Charlotte's matriarchal hold. The first is Desmond's marriage to the beautiful, lively Cynthia. The second is the First World War bringing the grief of bereavement and finally shattering the rigid codes of the Edwardian era. Cynthia enters the jazz age and on the surface her life passes in a whirl of fox-hunting, drinking and love-making. But the ghosts of Garonlea are only biding their time: they know the source of their power, a secret handed on from one generation to the next...